Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

Telegram from General Halleck to General Grant.

Transports will be sent to you as soon as possible to move your column up the Tennessee river. The main object of this expedition will be to destroy the railroad bridge over Bear creek, near Eastport, Miss., and also the connections at Corinth, Jackson, and Humboldt. It is thought best that these objects be attempted in the order named. Strong detachments of cavalry and light artillery, supported by infantry, may by rapid movements reach these points from the river without very serious opposition. Avoid any general engagement with strong forces. It will be better to retreat than to risk a general battle. This should be strongly impressed upon the officers sent with the expedition from the river. General C. F. Smith, or some very discreet officer, should be selected for such commands. Having accomplished these objects, or such of them as may be practicable, you will return to Danville and move on Paris. Perhaps the troops sent to Jackson and Humboldt can reach Paris as easily by land as to return to the transports. This must depend on the character of the roads and the position of the enemy. All telegraph lines which can be reached must be cut. The gunboats will accompany the transports for their [597] protection. Any loyal Tennesseeans, who desire it, may be enlisted and supplied with arms.

Competent officers should be left to command the garrisons of Forts Henry and Donelson in your absence. I have indicated in general terms the object of this.

Correspondence between Generals Beauregard and Grant.

sir: At the close of the conflict yesterday, my forces being exhausted by the extraordinary length of time during which they were engaged with yours on that and the preceding day, and it being apparent that you had received and were still receiving reenforcements, I felt it my duty to withdraw my troops from the immediate scene of conflict.

Under these circumstances, in accordance with usages of war, I shall transmit this under a flag of truce, to ask permission to send a mounted party to the battle-field of Shiloh, for the purpose of giving decent interment to my dead.

Certain gentlemen wishing to avail themselves of this to remove the remains of their sons and friends, I must request for them the privilege of accompanying the burial party; and in this connection, I deem it proper to say, I am asking only what I have extended to your own countrymen, under similar circumstances.

General, respectfully, your obedient servant,

General: Your dispatch of yesterday just received. Owing to the warmth of the weather, I deemed it advisable to have all the dead of both parties buried immediately. Heavy details were made for this purpose, and it is now accomplished. [598] There cannot therefore be any necessity of admitting within our lines the parties you desire to send on the grounds asked. I shall always be glad to extend any courtesy consistent with duty, especially so when dictated by humanity.

I am, General, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

Grant's congratulatory order after Shiloh.

General orders, no. 34.

The general commanding congratulates the troops who so gallantly maintained their position, repulsed and routed a numerically superior force of the enemy, composed of the flower of the Southern army, commanded by their ablest generals, and fought by them with all the desperation of despair.

In numbers engaged no such contest ever took place on this continent. In importance of result but few such have taken place in the history of the world.

Whilst congratulating the brave and gallant soldiers, it becomes the duty of the general commanding to make special notice of the brave wounded and those killed upon the field. Whilst they leave friends and relations to mourn their loss, they have won a nation's gratitude and undying laurels not to be forgotten by future generations, who will enjoy the blessings of the best government the sun ever shone upon, preserved by their valor.

By command of

General Grant to General Buell.

When I left the field this evening, my intention was to occupy the most advanced position possible for the night with the infantry engaged through the day, and follow up our success with cavalry and fresh troops, expected to arrive during [599] my last absence on the field. The great fatigue of our men; they having been engaged in two days fight, and subject to a march yesterday and fight to-day, would preclude the idea of making any advance to-night without the arrival of the expected reenforcements. My plan, therefore, will be to feel on in the morning with all the troops on the outer lines, until our cavalry force can be engaged. One regiment of your army will finish crossing soon, and a sufficient artillery and infantry support to follow them are ready for a move.

Under the instructions which I have previously received, and a dispatch also of to-day from Major-General Halleck, it will not then do to advance beyond Pea Ridge, or some point which we can reach and return in a day. General Halleck will probably be here himself to-morrow. Instructions have been sent to the different division commanders not included in your command, to be ready in the morning either to find if an enemy was in front, or to advance.

General Grant to General Buell

In making the reconnoissance ordered for this morning, none of the cavalry belonging to your command were directed to take part. I have directed, if the enemy are found retreating, information will be at once sent to Generals McClernand and Sherman, who will immediately advance with a portion of their forces in support of the reconnoissance. It will not be practicable to move artillery. If the enemy are retreating, and can be made to hasten across the low land between here and Pea Ridge, they will probably be forced to abandon their artillery and baggage. Will you be good enough to order your cavalry to follow on the Corinth roads, and give two or three of your fresh brigades to follow in support? Information has just reached me that the enemy have retreated.

General Grant to General Halleck, with Inclosures from General Sherman to General Grant.

The main force of the enemy is at Corinth, with troops at different points east. Small garrisons are also at Bethel, Jackson, and Humboldt. The number at these places seems constantly to change. The number of the enemy at Corinth, and within supporting distance of it, cannot be far from eighty thousand men. Information, obtained through deserters, places their force west at two hundred thousand. One division of Buell's column arrived yesterday. General Buell will be here himself to-day. Some skirmishing took place between our out-guards and the enemy's yesterday and the day before.

General Nelson, of Buell's column, has just arrived. The other two divisions will arrive to-morrow and next day. Some skirmishing took place last night between our advance and the enemy, resulting in four wounded, and four or five men and two officers (of our side) taken prisoners. The enemy lost several killed, and eight prisoners taken.

Just as my letter of yesterday, to Captain McLean, Assistant Adjutant-General, was finished, notes from Generals Mc-Clernand and Sherman's Assistant Adjutants-General were received, stating that our outposts had been attacked by the enemy, apparently in considerable force. I immediately went up, but found all quiet. The enemy took two officers and four or five of our men prisoners, and wounded four. We took [601] eight prisoners, and killed several. Number of the enemy's wounded not known.

They had with them three pieces of artillery, and cavalry and infantry. How much, cannot of course be estimated. I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack (general one) being made upon us, but will be prepared should such a thing take place.

General Nelson's division has arrived. The other two, of Buell's column, will arrive to-morrow or next day. It is my present intention to send them to Hamburg, some four miles above Pittsburg, when they all get here. From that point to Corinth the road is good, and a junction can be formed with the troops from Pittsburg at almost any point.

Colonel McPherson has gone with an escort to-day to examine the defensibility of the ground about Hamburg, and to lay out the position of the camps, if advisable to occupy that place.

sir,—All is quiet along my lines now. We are in the act of exchanging cavalry according to your orders. The enemy has cavalry in our front, and I think there are two regiments of infantry and one battery of artillery about six miles out. I will send you in ten prisoners of war, and a report of last night's affair, in a few minutes.

Your note is just received. I have no doubt that nothing will occur to-day more than some picket-firing. The enemy is saucy, but got the worst of it yesterday, and will not press our pickets far. I will not be drawn out far, unless with certainty of advantage; and I do not apprehend any thing like an attack upon our position.

Letter from General Sherman to the Editor of the United States' service magazine.—(published January, 1865.)

dear sir,—In the June number of the United States' Service Magazine, I find a brief sketch of Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant, in which I see you are likely to perpetuate an error, which General Grant may not deem of sufficient importance to correct. To General Buell's noble, able, and gallant conduct you attribute the fact that the disaster of April 6th, at Pittsburg Landing was retrieved, and made the victory of the following day. As General Taylor is said in his later days to have doubted whether he was at the battle of Buena Vista at all, on account of the many things having transpired there, according to the historians, which he did not see, so I begin to doubt whether I was at the battle of Pittsburg Landing, of modern description. But I was at the battles of April 6th and 7th, 1862. General Grant visited my division in person about ten A. M., when the battle raged fiercest. I was then on the right. After some general conversation, he remarked that I was doing right in stubbornly opposing the progress of the enemy; and, in answer to my inquiry as to cartridges, told me he had anticipated their want, and given orders accordingly; he then said his presence was more needed over at the left. About two P. M. of the 6th, the enemy materially slackened his attack on me, and about four P. M. I deliberately made a new line behind McArthur's drill-field, placing batteries on chosen ground, repelled easily a cavalry attack, and watched the cautious approach of the enemy's infantry, that never dislodged me there. I selected that line in advance of a bridge across Snake creek, by which we had all day been expecting the approach of Lewis Wallace's division from Crump's Landing. About five P. M., before the sun set, General Grant came again to me, and after hearing my report of matters, explained to me the situation of affairs on the left, which were not as favorable; still, the enemy had failed to reach the landing of the boats. We agreed that the enemy had expended the furore of his attack, and we estimated our loss, and approximated our then strength, including Lewis Wallace's fresh division, expected [603] each minute. He then ordered me to get all things ready, and at daylight the next day to assume the offensive. That was before General Buell had arrived, but he was known to be near at hand. General Buell's troops took no essential part in the first day's fight, and Grant's army, though collected together hastily, green as militia, some regiments arriving without cartridges even, and nearly all hearing the dread sound of battle for the first time, had successfully withstood and repelled the first day's terrific onset of a superior enemy, well commanded and well handled. I know I had orders from General Grant to assume the offensive before I knew General Buell was on the west side of the Tennessee. I think General Buell, Colonel Fry, and others of General Buell's staff rode up to where I was about sunset, about the time General Grant was leaving me. General Buell asked me many questions, and got of me a small map, which I had made for my own use, and told me that by daylight he could have eighteen thousand fresh men, which I knew would settle the matter.

I understood Grant's forces were to advance on the right of the Corinth road, and Buell's on the left; and accordingly, at daylight, I advanced my division by the flank, the resistance being trivial,--up to the very spot where the day before the battle had been most severe, and then waited till near noon for Buell's troops to get up abreast, when the entire line advanced and recovered all the ground we had ever held. I know that, with the exception of one or two severe struggles, the fighting of April 7th was easy as compared with that of April 6th.

I never was disposed, nor am I now, to question any thing done by General Buell and his army, and know that approaching our field of battle from the rear, he encountered that sickening crowd of laggards and fugitives that excited his contempt, and that of his army, who never gave full credit to those in the front line, who did fight hard, and who had, at four P. M. checked the enemy, and were preparing the next day to assume the offensive. I remember the fact the better from General Grant's anecdote of his Donelson battle, which he told me then for the first time—that, at a certain period of the battle he saw that either side was ready to give way, if the other showed a bold front, and he determined to do that very thing, to advance on the enemy, when, as he prognosticated, the enemy surrendered. At four P. M. of April 6th, he thought [604] the appearances the same, and he judged, with Lewis Wallace's fresh division and such of our startled troops as had recovered their equilibrium, he would be justified in dropping the defensive and assuming the offensive in the morning. And, I repeat, I received such orders before I knew General Buell's troops were at the river. I admit that I was glad Buell was there, because I knew his troops were older than ours, and better systematized and drilled, and his arrival made that certain, which before was uncertain. I have heard this question much discussed, and must say, that the officers of Buell's army dwelt too much on the stampede of some of our raw troops, and gave us too little credit for the fact that for one whole day, weakened as we were by the absence of Buell's army, long expected, of Lewis-Wallace's division, only four miles off, and of the fugitives from our ranks, we had beaten off our assailants for the time. At the same time, our Army of the Tennessee have indulged in severe criticisms at the slow approach of that army which knew the danger that threatened us from the concentrated armies of Johnston, Beauregard, and Bragg, that lay at Corinth. In a war like this, where opportunities for personal prowess are as plenty as blackberries, to those who seek them at the front, all such criminations should be frowned down; and were it not for the military character of your journal, I would not venture to offer a correction to a very popular error.

I will also avail myself of this occasion to correct another very common mistake, in attributing to General Grant the selection of that battle-field. It was chosen by that veteran soldier, Major-General Charles F. Smith, who ordered my division to disembark there, and strike for the Charleston railroad. This order was subsequently modified, by his ordering Hurlbut's division to disembark there, and mine higher up the Tennessee, to the mouth of Yellow creek, to strike the railroad at Burnsville. But floods prevented our reaching the railroad, when General Smith ordered me in person also to disembark at Pittsburg Landing, and take post well out, so as to make plenty of room, with Snake and Lick creeks the flanks of a camp for the grand army of invasion.

It was General Smith who selected that field of battle, and it was well chosen. On any other we surely would have been overwhelmed, as both Lick and Snake creeks forced the enemy [605] to confine his movement to a direct front attack which new troops are better qualified to resist than where the flanks are exposed to a real or chimerical danger. Even the divisions of that army were arranged in that camp by General Smith's order, my division forming, as it were, the outlying picket, whilst McClernand and Prentiss's were the real line of battle, with W. H. L. Wallace in support of the right wing, and Hurlbut of the left; Lewis Wallace's division being detached. All these subordinate dispositions were made by the order of General Smith, before General Grant succeeded him to the command of all the forces up the Tennessee-headquarters, Savanna. If there were any error in putting that army on the west side of the Tennessee, exposed to the superior force of the enemy also assembling at Corinth, the mistake was not General Grant's; but there was no mistake. It was necessary that a combat, fierce and bitter, to test the manhood of the two armies, should come off, and that was as good a place as any. It was not then a question of military skill and strategy, but of courage and pluck, and I am convinced that every life lost that day to us was necessary, for otherwise at Corinth, at Memphis, at Vicksburg, we would have found harder resistance, had we not shown our enemies that, rude and untutored as we then were, we could fight as well as they.

Excuse so long a letter, which is very unusual from me; but of course my life is liable to cease at any moment, and I happen to be a witness to certain truths which are now beginning to pass out of memory, and form what is called history.

I also take great pleasure in adding, that nearly all the new troops that at Shiloh drew from me official censure, have more than redeemed their good name; among them, that very regiment which first broke, the 53d Ohio, Colonel Appen. Under another leader, Colonel Jones, it has shared every campaign and expedition of mine since, is with me now, and can march, and bivouac, and fight as well as the best regiment in this or any army. Its reputation now is equal to that of any from the state of Ohio.

I am, with respect, yours truly,